Eric Ward @BulldogShadow of @WStatesCenter speaks on strengthening movement responses to white nationalism. First point: “remember your humanity and be in community”. 
White supremacy is a historic and present-day system of exclusion and exploitation. It is the founding of the US. Its core pillars: 1) stolen resources and genocide of indigenous people, 2) stolen labor of Black people, and 3) policing of sexuality.
Ward argues that white nationalism grows out of defeat of de jure white supremacy by civil rights movement. White supremacist intellectuals tap into European ideas of Jewish conspiracy seeking to dispossess white people of their nationhood.
If white supremacy is about exploitation, subjugation; white nationalism is about removal and ethnic cleansing. White supremacy is a system. White nationalism is an emerging social movement.
Our vulnerability to the social movement that is white nationalism is because of the bigotry that already exists in society; and our inability to put forth a counter-narrative. White nationalism is a social movement that uses hate to build power.
WN movements have used popular narratives of impending demographic change to move white folks from unconscious whiteness to conscious whiteness. This narrative relies on viewing diverse people of color as monolithic. Demographics are not destiny.
WN movements realized they could have a discourse on race using proxy terms: “immigration”, “illegals”. The rest of us thought we were having a policy debate on immigration. The real conversation was about who is an American.
Narratives around WN and economic inequality are also false. Studies have found white nationalism is more attractive to middle and upper-middle class, and higher educated. Why do we find this surprising? We don’t find it surprising in our own movements.
Ward argues that siloing and subcultural attributes on the left have impeded building of mass movements. Need to sit at tables we have not convened, without leaving our values behind.
Until recently, researchers tracked about 25 white nationalist candidates in a given election cycle. More than 600 during last election. WN grows power through terror as well.
“Speaking out and drawing boundaries against hate is how we counter white nationalism. And we do that by drawing a bigger circle.”
–@BulldogShadow
–@BulldogShadow
(Lots of great questions and provocative answers following Eric Ward’s talk, wish i could transcribe them all!)
One important point is on understanding how antisemitism works on a generalized level today: trope of Jewish people as puppet masters is used to undermine agency and legitimacy of all oppressed groups.
Another comment from Eric Ward @BulldogShadow's talk last night that's sticking with me: "In order to organize against racism, you have to be willing to experience racism [homophobia/transphobia/etc.]"
I think this also applies for folks who doin't directly experience those oppressions personally as well, if in different ways.
There's some amazing footage somewhere in the Eyes on the Prize documentary series of civil rights activists engaging in non-violence trainings doing roleplays of intimidation and mob violence and in preparation for sit-ins.
I could personally use some more training for this. Over the summer for example I cussed out a guy at an anti-ICE protest for voicing arguments I didn't like. Not suggesting I should have engaged him in debate or anything, but losing my cool probably wasn't a great tactic either.
The Eyes on the Prize documentary also exemplifies the tactical rigor and philosophical commitment of activists using Kingian nonviolence, which I think that many leftists and radicals today flatten out with general critiques of nonviolence.
